Basics of Yoga

In Sanskrit, word Ahimsa means: “himsa – violence”, “a – denial, against.”

There are 3 levels of Ahimsa: body, speech, and thoughts.

1) Body level: do not kill or harm other humans and animals.

2) Speech level: do not harm with your words, don’t gossip, don’t talk about information that you don’t know, no judging, and do not curse.

3) Thoughts level: good thoughts, without harm to others, no judging, without hating other people, without abuse, without uttering lies in any way.

The Law of Karma means that whatever bad we do for others, it will come back to us. It means if we say bad words about another person, somebody will need to say bad words for us in the future (actually, it can be our karma from the past, or it could be our future).… skaityti daugiau

Beginner practitioners meet with physical discomfort when practicing asanas, but even more when trying to sit with a straight back and crossed legs by going to inner practices: pranayamas, concentration, and meditation. And often physical pain in the legs or back becomes a serious trial. One thing is to practice from time to time, and it is absolutely different from long, intensive retreats, where you need to sit for many hours and where pain becomes an enemy who is “always with you.”

Remember that to feel discomfort during meditation is a normal fact in the beginning of your way. Everybody who practices faces that. Pain and distraction do not say that practice is unsuccessful.… skaityti daugiau

To understand for myself what yoga is, I decided to ask people what they understand about it. I asked people who practice yoga and who heard something about yoga, about 50 and 50 percent.

Results:

– It is a system of knowledge about the inner human world and the universe.
– Path of knowledge and self-development, self-growth, self-knowledge.
– Teaching about soul.
– Exercises for health.
– Helps to relax stress, anxiety, and fatigue.
– System of knowledge that helps to harmonize the inner world and surroundings.
– Exercises in fitness for health.
– Exercises that help to reach goals.
– Love for God, Creator.
– System that will allow determining the relation between self and the external world.… skaityti daugiau

The first time those morality laws were written in Sanskrit – very widely understood language, that hard-to understand simple interpretation. Also, every practitioner can understand it by himself. Here you will find one way to understand it.

Yama – compilation of principles that determines relationship with the external world, talk about human behavior rules with his surroundings, and includes those principles:

1. Ahimsa – non-violence, non-harm to the surrounding world and all living beings in thoughts, speech, and action. Liberation from anger, aggression, and negative emotions, ability to realize and accept the world as it is.

2. Satya – truthfulness in thoughts and speech, orienting the mind to self-development.

3. Asteya – non-stealing, satisfaction of material situation.… skaityti daugiau

Why is ascesis so important for those who strive for self-development? Path of spiritual growth: it’s impossible without effort. For constant progress, practitioner needs to overcome his limits and work with himself. Progress is possible only after going out of comfort zone.

All the greatest personalities were going through ascesis. Let’s talk about the example of Buddha Shakyamuni. When he understood the importance of progress on the spiritual path and left the palace, where he, as a prince, was living with extraordinary luxury, Buddha (at that time his name was Siddhartha Gautama) joined a group of five ascets (hermits), who were making the hardest ascesis, tortures, in order to become enlightened and find Highest Truth.… skaityti daugiau

When I started practicing yoga, almost all troubles related to health left. There was a fitness interest in hatha yoga, and I did not even try to get benefits. But after some time of practice, I came to the conclusion that mostly in the modern world people practice yoga to gain or keep good health, appearance, and external forms. Some people who practice say that they come to relax after a hard working day.

For several years I was practicing yoga as a tool for better health. “Yoga for health,” “No back pain,” “Yoga for weight loss,” “Yoga without spirituality” – a lot of internet websites have similar advertisements. What do you think, do we need spirituality?… skaityti daugiau

Nowadays yoga has become very popular. It happened because of various modern society tendencies, development of the internet, and the removing of borders for sharing information, it allowed yoga to become available for everyone.

Let’s find out together: what are the basics of yoga, what are goals of yoga, how yoga understands most of the modern people, what about this self-knowledge science were talking ancient sages, what books about yoga do we still have as a support for practice, and what is important to know for starting this your own path.

Most of the modern people think that yoga – it is effective gymnastics that have health-improving and rejuvenating qualities, a practice that removes stress and gives harmony.… skaityti daugiau

Law of Karma states: “Everything that you do, everything will come back to you; all that happens to you is a fair reward” (“Sutra about law of karma”).

Why is it very important to understand this law not only for yogis but also for usual people? We all need to choose and make decisions. Those decisions will be absolutely different depending on what moral foundation we have. The one who lives life without thinking about the consequences of his actions, usually creates negative karma. The one who understands that sooner or later he will need to pay for everything, looks at his actions much more responsibly. He is unlikely to do negative actions towards others.… skaityti daugiau